Announcing MakerX for 3D Printing!

[MakerX]

Hello 3DPrinters!

MakerX is a new product we are making to help you love your 3D printer. We are in the design stages now. You can find more details at http://makerx.io

We would much appreciate if you could fill out our 5 minute survey about what features you would like to see.
http://goo.gl/forms/3xNMtUJFcI

Happy printing everyone!

[LambdaFF]

I browsed your site quickly.
Now, I'm no expert in marketing but I was quite shocked by your choice of design for your box. It is too much of a coincidence to be coincidental : aren't you afraid of actions from Microsoft ?

[Marm]

Print caught fire??? While I can only imagine that is is possible, and has probably happened, I would assume that since the hot end is not heating the filament to the ignition temp of the material (that would tend to be counterproductive), the chances of fire are so low that I would not be putting it as your first, and ergo main, selling point.

And if you're using an arduino based system (Ramps?), having net connectivity is somewhat trivial, even if it is the somewhat clunky method of using a second board. Especially since there are many apps that can already stream and time lapse video for you.

And you don't list what printers you intend to be compatible with. I would bet a toe (one of the small ones, I like my toes) it won't be compatible with mine.

Dispatch/Queuing? I don't see the point really. I have to physically be present to remove the previous print to start the next. Even with multiple printers, they are one shot machines. I don't always do my design / preprint work at the printer, quite often it's at a remote location. I just upload the print when I get there. If the project requires multiple prints, I naturally order my prints to allow me to do other pre/post work while one is printing.

A long list of other hmmmms comes to mind also.....

Most people with a little bit of arduino experience can replicate most of these features if they wanted.

[MakerX]

Print caught fire??? While I can only imagine that is is possible, and has probably happened, I would assume that since the hot end is not heating the filament to the ignition temp of the material (that would tend to be counterproductive), the chances of fire are so low that I would not be putting it as your first, and ergo main, selling point.

There has been some pretty severe property damage in the past from printer fires. Although they are rare, most people do have smoke detectors in their homes for the rare fire as well. The intention is to minimize the hazard and maximize the peace of mind. But MakerX is still in the design stages and that's why were are looking for interest in the feature.

And if you're using an arduino based system (Ramps?), having net connectivity is somewhat trivial, even if it is the somewhat clunky method of using a second board. Especially since there are many apps that can already stream and time lapse video for you.

Understandably the technical feat of wireless print isn't large, however it is the added convenience of not needed to dedicate a computer to the printer, instead just MakerX. We are aware that streaming and timelapse are existing features, that's why we plan to support them as well.

And you don't list what printers you intend to be compatible with. I would bet a toe (one of the small ones, I like my toes) it won't be compatible with mine.

Compatibility isn't 100% decided yet, but the intention is to focus our support on the more commercially available ones. We envision making your $200-$1200 printer perform more like a $2000-$3000 printer. Naturally some performance is due to the parts in your printer, but we think the gap can be narrowed. However, as long as your printer supports standard GCodes or there's an open source method to create the equivalent of the GCode for your printer, we hope to have it supported.

Dispatch/Queuing? I don't see the point really. I have to physically be present to remove the previous print to start the next. Even with multiple printers, they are one shot machines. I don't always do my design / preprint work at the printer, quite often it's at a remote location. I just upload the print when I get there. If the project requires multiple prints, I naturally order my prints to allow me to do other pre/post work while one is printing.

The main goal of the Queue or Dispatch is convenience of allowing you to do your placements and design before all your work is finished printing. We understand that you need to return to clean up and prepare your print bed, but we want to make it easy to start up your next job without having to go through all the steps again. Just clean it up and print.

A long list of other hmmmms comes to mind also.....

Most people with a little bit of arduino experience can replicate most of these features if they wanted.

You're right that some of the functionality can definitely be supported by someone with enough time and interest in designing it all themselves. OctoPrint also provides some of the support as well. However, we are trying to make a reliable, easy to use solution with very minimal effort.

Thank you very much for your feedback, we will take all your thoughts into careful consideration during our design process. We really just want to make 3D printing easier for everyone because we see the huge potential for the technology. We are very excited to help the community flourish.

[Sebastian Finke]

... We envision making your $200-$1200 printer perform more like a $2000-$3000 printer...

Bull.

Make a $1200 perform like a $2000-$3000 dollar printer? Possibly. But that 's down to the skill of the operator and certain physical mods made to the printer. Certainly not from your features..

Cloud- does not affect the print quality
Dashboard - set in the program, visible on printer screen. Also does not affect the print quality
Journal - already in print profile.
Live Stream - does not affect the print quality
Time lapse - does not affect the print quality
Manual override - already exists, at least on printers running sailfish. Also does not affect the print quality
Red alert - printer catch fire due to faulty wiring and connectors. An app does not help with this. Also does not affect the print quality
Custom notifications - does not affect the print quality
Dispatch - this might be useful to some.

Make a $200 printer function like a $3000 printer? No.

[JohnnyV]

Sooooo you're just copying Octoprint?

[MakerX]

Hi Sabastian,

The point is that your $200 printer will be bare bones with very basic printing functionality. We want to help you understand your printer better and customize the print settings for optimal performance.

Of course the convenience features like cloud prints and web cam streaming won't make your print job better. But why not include some useful features into your printer that you only see with the higher end models? As in WiFi support. Yes, many features are supported in a variety of printers of different costs and software. We want to equalize the playing field. Any USB enabled printer can get on WiFi. They can all have manual control, notifications, system monitoring, etc. That's under making your life easier and printing more convenient.

However improving your prints our vision is more along the lines of giving a database of knowledge. Initially you will have your personal journal system. Scraps of paper with some ideas and tweaks. Maybe you save your profile each print and parse through your text file or import each one at a time to remember what you did.

We believe having a presentable representation of your printer performance will enable some great insights. Thus a convenient, easy to use, journal. More over, access to like 3D printers with their own experiments will help you learn even more.

The amount of settings, slicers, modeling software, support techniques is practically endless. We believe we can improve your experiences with some communal insights.

But for clarity's sake, I did not mean your print quality will be that of the $2000-$3000 printer. I meant you could get a lot of features that you see on those higher end models on your far more affordable model. Many of our features or versions of them exist on expensive printers but are completely out of scope of anything under $1000 - $2000. I apologize for the confusion there.

MakerX will not turn water into wine, but if might just keep some 3D printer operators form pulling out their hair and discarding their printer as a decoration.

Thank you for your thoughts, feedback is definitely welcomed.

[MakerX]

Sooooo you're just copying Octoprint?

Yes, there are some cross features with OctoPrint and MakerX. Copy is a bit exaggerated. We do want to provide everything that OctoPrint has that people find helpful, don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Main differences is that we want to provide the hardware side as well with some extra customization. Perhaps control and displays on any model of printer. If we can improve on features in OctoPrint and the same time than even better. They are a software solution that can be used on nearly any system to help you print. We want to provide an affordable hardware solution with it's own software to compliment it.

We have an already establish chip, the Omega, by Onion, to power MakerX. We like what OctoPrint is doing, we want to try to take it one step further.

[Sebastian Finke]

I certainly encourage all development in the 3D printing arena. Your gadget will have zero use for me, but perhaps for others...

Your wording is a bit misleading. Nevertheless, keep it at...

[dunginhawk]

While I agree with Sebastian, and I dont see a personal use for it, there are a lot of companies that have taken a disparate product set and combined them, branded them and sold them.

So what if its just like octoprint (thats a good product). some people dont want to go through the hassle of buying the pi, setting it up, all that jazz.
If i didnt have pis all over already and you told me for $125 i could have a maker x that did all of that straight out of the box and maybe more, i may buy it. who knows.

If i can say one thing about this forum, we are passionate makers. Dont take the negative feedback or questions (in whatever form delivered) as negative, or hurtful. USE IT as a learning experience. Us active members know EXACTLY what we want out of a product. This is your best proving grounds for honest feedback. So dont dismiss it, use it. Dont get defensive (we arent calling your baby ugly) just take it all in and see if everything still makes sense.

Good luck man. Im an entrepreneur myself, and within a year hope to bring to market (not 3d printing related at all) something that will forever change certain industries. Its not easy. stick with it.